The Shadows of Sorrow
by ilovetvalot
Summary: Written in response to the TV Prompt Challenge #19: Desperate Housewives - "The Coffee Cup". How will Emily deal with a tragic loss? Derek/Emily


_**Author's Note: Written in response to Kavi Leighanna and Sienna27's Television Prompt #19 June Challenge. Thanks ladies, for giving me a way to flex my writing muscles and produce something that I normally wouldn't. And again, nothing I write would be possible without my friend, beta and co-author tonnie2001969.**_

**The Shadows of Sorrow**

_**Prompt: Desperate Housewives - "The Coffee Cup"**_

Standing on the threshold of his office, the perfectly ordered desk staring back at her, Emily Prentiss swallowed painfully as she felt that familiar stinging behind her closed eyelids. Idly, almost clinically, she wondered if this was finally it...that final push she needed for the floodgates to open and her tears to freely flow.

She hadn't been able to cry yet.

At first, she'd been determined to remain strong...to see him through the veil separating this life from the next with the dignity he would have expected from her. Then, there'd been the million plus one details to deal with, momentarily distracting her from the biting pain. But, last night, after the funeral when it was just her, alone, with her memories, the agony had gripped her. Hard.

And still, even crumpled tightly in the corner of their shared bedroom, she hadn't cried.

Everyone else had. JJ's silent tears had fallen almost constantly ever since each team member had said goodbye to their comrade at the hospital. She'd thought Garcia's sobs might physically rent her in two. Reid had broken in the chapel while praying to a God neither of them was entirely certain actually existed. Hotch had tried to maintain his stoic facade until the very end, when each of them had finally lost hope. Unlike Rossi, who'd unashamedly allowed his tears to fall even in the midst of believing that the worst truly wouldn't come.

But it had. Death had slipped through their defenses, defiantly snatching the one person that she wasn't sure she could live her life without.

It all seemed so unfair now. She'd only just found him, although they'd worked together for years. Well, that wasn't quite right, was it? It was more accurate to say that Derek Morgan had finally convinced her to stop hiding from him...from what they could have together if she'd only just relax and stop analyzing.

"Just feel, Em," she could still hear him whispering, that velvet voice ribboning through her thoughts. God...to hear that rich baritone filling her ears again. Guiltily, she glanced at her cell phone in her hand. How many times had she listened to that last voice mail from him, asking her where in the hell she'd hidden his basketball...all to hear that deep timbre in his voice one last time?

Dropping it quickly into the deep pocket of her slacks lest she surrender to temptation and call her voice mail for the hundredth time since she'd lost him four days ago, Emily inhaled deeply.

God, she silently moaned, the spicy scent of his familiar cologne lingering in the air in his office as strongly as it still did on his pillow on their bed. Perhaps she should have taken JJ's offer and allowed her to pack up his office. But the notion of anyone else touching his things seemed like sacrilege. Even if it was one of their closest friends.

How could someone so vibrant...so very _alive_...be gone? Just simply cease to exist? How could one small piece of twisted metal inflict so much carnage? One bullet. One shot. And her world had crumbled. Everything she'd known...every wish she'd made...every dream she'd had...simply dissolved. Because of a madman with a gun.

Mindlessly, she slowly started to pack his desk. His personal files, pictures of the team. The framed photo of their wedding day when it had seemed that the sky was the limit. His lucky stapler - which had traveled with him from his beat cop days in Chicago all the way through to his promotion to Senior Special Agent. So many memories that served to trigger even more thoughts, her mind flooding with glimpses of the past.

And then she spotted it. And within seconds, the first hot tear splashed against her cheek.

That damned red chipped coffee mug sitting exactly where he'd last laid it on the corner of his polished desk mocked her. Reaching out with one finger, she tentatively circled the rim, imagining the warm, smooth feel of his lips and how he'd laughed when she'd presented him with her "perfect" gift four years ago.

With a trembling smile, she remembered that deep chuckle that had reverberated off the walls of his office when on the one month anniversary of their first date, she'd presented him with that red coffee mug emblazoned with "World's Greatest Profiler" in the center. And then, over their intervening years together, she'd tried so many times to convince him to part with the tacky cup. But releasing a small sob, she swore she could hear him, even now, saying, "Woman, please! Step away from my cup and nobody has to get hurt!"

Squeezing her eyes closed as her tears fell faster, Emily sank her teeth into her lip, desperately trying to stifle the scream rising in her throat. She knew that Derek would have told her to let it out...to allow herself to grieve. But, Holy Christ, she'd never expected anything in her life to hurt like this! But then, she'd never spent one instant imagining her life without him once he'd convinced her to let him into it.

Crying harder as she sank deeply into his chair, her legs suddenly unable to support her any longer, she never heard the door softly opening. It was only when she felt the swivel chair she sat in turning and the warm, soft arms of Penelope Garcia enveloping her, that she realized that she wasn't alone.

"How do we live without him, PG?" Emily rasped, her sobs coming faster and heavier than they ever had in her life, her arms clutching desperately for the other woman's strong shoulders. "How do I keep going? How do I survive it?"

"You remind yourself that it won't hurt like this forever," Pen whispered against her ear, her tone filled with tears of her own. "He wanted you to live, Gumdrop. Not just survive but, LIVE," she insisted firmly, her own cheeks now wet from her grief for both of her friends.

"He should have let me take the bullet," Emily moaned hoarsely, shaking her head as she fought another wave of anguish. "The unsub wanted ME!" she sobbed, each word bit out with anger and sorrow.

"Derek wanted you more," Penelope replied, tightening her arms around Emily's fragile shoulders as she whispered into her ear. "He wanted you to live."

"I've always been the one who left," Emily confided, her breaths coming in gasps as she bounced her chin against Penelope's shoulder. "Men...jobs...I've never been the one that got left behind."

"He didn't leave you behind, Emily. He just stepped ahead of you. One day, you'll catch up with him again," Penelope said, drawing back to stare into Emily's broken face.

"You really think so?" Emily asked as she finally opened her eyes, her voice cracking as she took the crumpled tissue Garcia pressed into her hand.

"I know so. Not even death will stop that Chocolate God from loving you," Pen assured her, smiling confidently as she eased the broken woman back into the chair, watching carefully as Emily swiped angrily at the tears tracking her pale cheeks.

"And nothing will ever stop me from loving him," Emily vowed, straightening her shoulders as she felt her heart expand once again, her fingers reaching out to desperately clutch that battered, ugly coffee mug.

And as she spoke those words, her first gift to him tucked tightly against her chest, Emily Prentiss finally began to heal.

_**finis**_


End file.
